Bernard Cazeneuve is best known for overseeing the nation's security forces in response to a spate of terror attacks.
Bernard Cazeneuve is best known for overseeing the nation's security forces in response to a spate of terror attacks.
ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images/File

Story highlights

Cazeneuve oversaw the nation's security response to terror attacks

He replaces Manuel Valls, who is launching a presidential bid

Paris CNN  — 

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has been appointed prime minister, the Elysee Palace said Tuesday, after Manuel Valls stepped down from the role to launch a presidential bid.

Valls, 54, announced Monday he would put himself in the running to become the Socialist Party candidate for next year’s presidential poll and will have to go through primary elections to win the party nomination.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls makes a statement following a security meeting with French President on July 15, 2016 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, a day after a gunman smashed a truck into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day in the city of Nice. An attack in Nice where a man rammed a truck into a crowd of people left 84 dead and another 18 in a "critical condition", interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on July 15. An unidentified gunman barrelled the truck two kilometres (1.3 miles) through a crowd that had been enjoying a fireworks display for France's national day before being shot dead by police. / AFP / Thomas SAMSON (Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls makes a statement following a security meeting with French President on July 15, 2016 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, a day after a gunman smashed a truck into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day in the city of Nice. An attack in Nice where a man rammed a truck into a crowd of people left 84 dead and another 18 in a "critical condition", interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on July 15. An unidentified gunman barrelled the truck two kilometres (1.3 miles) through a crowd that had been enjoying a fireworks display for France's national day before being shot dead by police. / AFP / Thomas SAMSON (Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)
THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Related article Manuel Valls announces presidential bid

Cazeneuve, 53, is best known for overseeing the nation’s security forces in response to a spate of terror attacks that hit the country, killing 229 people in two years. The deadliest were the Paris attacks last year that left 130 people dead.

Cazeneuve is a trained lawyer but has had a long political career. In 1991 he became a councilor in the Cabinet of Thierry de Beaucé, then the secretary of state for international cultural relations, according to his biography on the Interior Ministry website.

The far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen will likely run in the first round of the presidential election.
The far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen will likely run in the first round of the presidential election.

He was elected a member of parliament in 1997 and has since served as minister of state for European affairs and minister of state for the budget, before being appointed interior minister.

Valls’ resignation has given way to a Cabinet shake-up, with Bruno Le Roux, a ranking socialist in the French National Assembly, nominated as interior minister in Cazeneuve’s place.

If Valls wins the Socialist nomination, he will likely face Francois Fillon of the Republican Party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National in the first round of the presidential election next spring.

The race begins

President Francois Hollande of the same party announced Thursday last week that he would not seek a second term as his popularity ratings plunge.

It is the first time since 1958, when France’s fifth republic was created, that an incumbent president has not sought reelection.

Hollande cited achievements under his watch, including opening up marriage to all couples, strengthening women’s equality and fighting against discrimination.

He said unemployment had declined since the beginning of the year, but conceded “it remains at too high a level.”

Valls who has also previously served as interior minister, said on Monday that he wanted an independent France “inflexible on its values, when facing Xi Jinping’s China, Putin’s Russia, Donald Trump’s America, Erdogan’s Turkey,” referring to the leaders of those countries.

Francois Fillion will run as France's Republican candidate.
Francois Fillion will run as France's Republican candidate.
AFP/Getty Images

Fillon, 62, was elected the Republican Party candidate in primary elections. He has been dubbed a “French Thatcher” for his apparent admiration for Britain’s “Iron Lady,” Margaret Thatcher.

A lawyer who served as prime minister between 2007 and 2012 under Nicolas Sarkozy, Fillon has talked of ending France’s famed 35-hour work week and getting tough with the country’s powerful trade unions.

A hard line on immigration has also bolstered Le Pen, whose anti-Europe stance is gaining popularity among French voters.